A Wicked Issue
by Jk33
Summary: Albel's got a problem, and no one can help him.  See inside for more detailed summary...[Complete]
1. A Wicked Issue

Well, finally decided to give the whole writing bit a chance, so here it goes. I tried my hardest to check for grammar and spelling mistakes, but some might have passed, I need to find a Beta reader...

So here's the summary: The gang accidentally comes into contact with a bizzare love potion that Welch creates. As a result, every member of the party is in love with Albel, and fighting for his attention. Albel, unfortunately, has to find out how to get things under control by himself. If you seriously want to ruin the story and find out who ends up with him, go ahead and send me a message and I'll tell you, but it will spoil the surprise greatly. And if I do tell you, don't you dare get mad if it's a pairing you don't like.

Rated T for some language, and later some minor sexual innuendo.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Ocean 3, any of its characters, any of its places, or anything else related to it. All I have is this plotline. I also have no money, so don't sue me.

Read and Review!

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All was quiet in the streets of Peterny; well, metaphorically speaking, the town was loud enough to deafen anyone. All was seemingly well, except for one small problem: Welch Vineyard, the "greatest craftswoman on Elicoor" was inventing. Welch inventing was akin to holding a stick of lit dynamite in your hand; it won't end well… 

Welch sat at her desk, fumbling around with various compounding ingredients in her usual ditzy manner, oblivious to anything else going around. Many people became inventors just to watch Welch's ditziness in action. More often that not, people tuned in to her reports on inventor stats just to see if she would totally blow it, which more often that not she did.

So what was her goal? Who knows, or cares for that matter? Point is her end result would lead to more chaos than Armageddon; that was for sure. So she continually mixed this and that and God knows what, ending up with what looked to be a vial of blood. Welch might have been an excellent inventor, but she had the terrible habit of doing things just for shock value.

"Oh boy! I wonder what it does!" she chirped delightfully, more hyper than a four year old that ate five bags of pure sugar.

She pulled one of her "so-frigging-awesome-tells-what-in-the-seven-hells-this-stupid-potion-does-machine", commonly dubbed the S.F.A.T.W.I.T.S.H.T.P.D.M. or as Cliff in one of his oh so brilliant times called it "Cookie". After the gyro-stablizer-none-of-these-names-actually-mean-anything-they-just-sound-scientific-capacitors did their jobs she assessed the item as nothing but a highly contagious and super potent love potion, though who said person would fall in love with was entirely unknown.

"Hmm, I give it a 99 myself" she giggled, just like her to give her crapiest inventions the best possible rating, stupid airhead…

"Hmm, I'll have to get the Guildmaster to file a patent for it when he gets back. Oh well, I wonder how the losers in the workshop are doing" she said, bouncing off in the direction of the workshop, leaving those who saw her to question what sanity she had.

Unfortunately for Welch, our beloved motley crew decided to walk in and look for Welch. It had been an agonizingly long day, and they wanted nothing more than to have their homunculi kick each other's asses on the Paraclesus' Table. None of them was in a good mood; a day of trudging through the new dungeons in the Ursa Lava Caves was enough to piss anyone off.

"Gah! Damn caves! Can't things work out for us just once!" the sub-innocuous boy-leader Fayt shouted to the group, randomly punting Roger for the sake of venting.

"Ow! The hell's your problem?" he shouted, picking himself up off the floor.

"Just shut up!" the Crimson Blade Nel yelled, "I've had enough of you all whining for one day! Ooh Nel, I need you to heal me! Ooh Nel, we just got our asses kicked by a fake version of ourselves! Enough!"

Cliff, being the most annoyed, and the one who most wanted to be relax stepped up to Welch's counter, only to see her gone. This sent the enrage Klausian into a fit of fury, "Damn it all!" he shouted, lifting a bottle of red goo that happened to be on the table and chucking it down on the floor. The result made the vial explode, and doused the entire gang in the liquid.

"Way to go ass-bag!" Fayt shouted.

"Screw you!" came his reply.

One of the attendants came to see what was wrong, when he noticed something. Taking a head count he found; Fayt, Cliff, Nel, Roger, Peppita, Mirage, Adray, Maria, and Sophia present, but no Albel. Forgoing his plan to help them clean up, he instead asked, "Where is mister Albel Nox?"

At this time the answer to the old question was answered. Anyone who came in contact with the potion would fall in love with the first person whose name was said after touching the potion. The whole group stopped, tinges of red on their cheeks as the super concentrated love potion took its horrifying effect.

The whole group stammered, and finally Fayt stammered the answer, "He uh… said he was done dealing with us, so he's waiting at the inn…"

The attendant nodded, "I see. Do you want help getting that off?"

The group simultaneously shook their heads, a response came of, "No we just need to go" And the now emotionally flustered friends dashed out, coming across Albel waiting outside the inn's door, he cocked and eyebrow at them.

"Done already, maggots? What's that red slime?" he queried.

All of them stopped, faces reddening even more that the original blush and love potion colored them, Maria took the helm and answered, "She wasn't there. We're going back on the Diplo now."

Albel shrugged, "Then tell those maggots you call a crew to hurry and beam us up!"

Maria answered in a sighing, "Oookaaaay…" she gazed for a moment, then snapped back to reality and Albel's clearing of his throat. "Oh right" she put a finger to her earpiece, "Marietta, transport us up please"

"Okay" she replied. Within seconds, the group was teleported up to the ship, and all stood rooted, trying to come to grips with the sudden new feeling. Well, all except Albel, who promptly shouted, "Move!" and they scampered out of his way, watching him walk away. The finally moved, each taking their place in the ship.

--

Cliff was sitting in the chair in his room at the computer, thinking to himself. He had never cared about Albel before; he kind of always wanted to pound his skinny ass into the dirt. But now… he couldn't even say it. Was he really in love with Albel? No way! He never was attracted to men before…

--

Fayt paced in his room lost in his own thoughts. Sure he was young and still questioning himself but… falling for Albel was off the meter! He respected Albel, saw him as human where all the others looked at him like some kind of rabid dog. But that didn't mean he loved him… did it?

--

Mirage was at her usual seat in the ship, attempting to make peace with her mind. She had loved Cliff before today, but why was it suddenly Albel? She never interacted much with him, just merely saw him as the lone wolf, solitary and strong in his own right, but love never entered her mind, was this some kind of joke?

--

Roger was sitting in the corner of one of the hallways, wondering for all his treasures why he was suddenly finding Albel to be the image of a true man. He always disliked Albel, and found him to creepy and mean. But now… he didn't know what to think.

--

Peppita was more or less the same as everyone else, puzzled by her own traitorous thoughts. From the moment she first saw Albel, he had scared her beyond all her wits, and she resolved to stay far away from him for fear of him coming in some dark night to butcher her. But now she just wanted to give him a huge bear hug, man she was creepy…

--

Maria was slouched over her desk, pondering why she had the sudden urge to be with Albel. She had finally come to terms with her feeling for Fayt, who was a sweet and charming boy, but now found herself confused all over again for the sake of an arrogant smug man who probably hated her… why did her heart betray her so?

--

Sophia sat with her hands folded at the table in the conference room. She had no idea how or why she was feeling things for Albel, but she was. The name Fayt meant nothing to her, the only person who mattered was him…

--

Adray sat cross-legged on the floor in his compartment. Estranged thoughts creeping in his head; sure he like Albel on the account that he was his friend Glou's son, and wanted to see him happy. But actually loving him… that was just… yuck. He figured it must be because Albel looked so feminine.

--

Nel laid on her back her hands behind her head on the small bed in her room. Why did she feel this way for him now? She had despised Albel; he killed her subordinates, insulted her kingdom, and treated her with cold contempt. She should hate him, but instead she found herself… loving him. Oh man, and she had to share a room with him, this would be awkward.

--

Unbeknownst to everyone else, they all simultaneously blushed, eyes fading, and a faint smile crossing their lips as they all said, "I love you, Albel"

--

In one of the hallways on the Diplo, the unfortunate Wicked One's ears began to burn, and he had an odd feeling of impending doom. He shook it off, "Just my mind playing tricks on me." Poor Albel, he was definitely in for it.

* * *

Hmm, came up kind of shorter than I wanted, but writing everyone's little paragraph agitated me. I'll definately make the next chapters longer, this one was just there to get the plot set up. I've started on the second chapter already, and trust me, it's much better. So just hang around. I also feel I made them all a bit OOC, 'cept for Albel. I'll try and rectify my mistakes. 

Constructive criticism is appreciated, but please don't hesitate to tell me my faults, I won't learn if you don't.


	2. Uncomfortable Situations

Oi... I got so bored that I ended up just sitting down and starting on my next chapter right after finishing the other one. Again, I tried to proofread as much as I could, but with a terrible eye for mistakes, and an equally dismal grammar checker (I could put a period, colon, semi-colon, and quotes all next to each other, and it would say my error is a sentence fragment!) it might be little weird.

Coupled with my screwed up sleeping habit: which goes along the line of me actually waking up at 8 PM, eating my family's dinner as my breakfast; staying up all night; eating my family's breakfast as lunch, going to my five hour long summer school class, then coming home at noon to eat lunch as dinner and go bed until 8 PM, rinse and repeat, this may be a little bit iffy.

Additionally, since my summer school psychology course is doing the Hierarchy of Needs, I have probably used the term "physiological homeostasis" a couple times too many. But that said, it fits Albel's problem so well.

Since everyone else does a disclaimer for every chapter, I'm supposing I have to too: I don't own Star Ocean 3... period... now enjoy this chapter... I mean it... don't dare flame me for this, it felt like I was working on this for a week straight, if I get one flame I will come at you on some dark night with a pointy reckoning that will shudder you!

* * *

Albel slowly ambled towards his room, hoping to avoid the annoying pests that called themselves the crew on this flying tin can. Space unsettled him, the long and empty darkness, the lack of anything dangerous; it was boring. The only thing that entertained him was getting a rise out of Zelpher and the others. This life he had retired to, endlessly fluctuating between pointlessly flying through the stars and coming back to Elicoor just to screw around was the most bothersome thing that could have happened to him. 

Was fighting Luther all for nothing? He hadn't even gotten any sort of fame from it; provided fame did not matter to him, but come on! You know what he got form his king for beating Luther? A fruit basket! Whoop-dee-doo! _"No point dwelling in what I can't change,_ he thought to himself_, let's go see if Zelpher's in her usual prissy mood"._ He could admit to find some sort of sick sadistic pleasure in being, as everyone put it, a confrontational, ornery bastard.

Finally, he arrived at the sliding door to his quarters, grimacing at the annoying whoosh of the door. He sauntered in to find Nel, sitting on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest, and a dopey grin slapped across her face. It almost seemed mean to throw an insult at her in this stage, it'd be like taking candy from a baby.

Too bad for Nel, Albel was just cruel enough to do it, "Well this is an amazing sight, Nel Zelpher day dreaming… what will I see next? A black rainbow? Or maybe the blonde ape will show some brains…"

Nel snapped out immediately and looked at Albel. She grinned sheepishly, and her face flushed slightly, "I guess I must've looked pretty stupid…"

Yeah, she definitely did… wait a minute! Freeze frame! Rewind! Did she just agree with him… and blush! No fuh-reaking way! What about the '_shut up, Nox'_ or the witty remark?

Albel was at loss, had he any less sense of restraint that he had, his jaw would have hit the floor, and he would be stammering incoherently. For a minute he thought that might have been her plan, but she had no hint of sarcasm, or maliciousness in her voice. No way… Albel was brought out of his thoughts when Nel began, "Say Albel, I've got a question…"

_Okay,_ he thought, _here it comes, some sort of question that will attempt to shoot me down_.

"What's you favorite color?" she asked innocently. Albel nearly fell over. Did she just ask him about himself? Was she drunk?

"Uh… what?" he disbelievingly returned. This was getting too weird.

"It's just" Nel sounded timid… too timid, this couldn't be a good sign, "I don't know anything about you… and it sort of makes me uneasy"

Albel was suddenly hit by two tons of WTF… he finally responded, "Uh…." He paused in the uncomfortable aura, "purple?"

Nel giggled, and for the second time he almost dropped, cue the Twilight Zone music my friends, "I figured as much…" she said with a smile. Uh-uh… no way. Nel Zelpher didn't smile… well; she threw haughty smirks around and looks of trust but… smile? That was the craziest thing so far…

Wow, Albel was so uncomfortable right now. He contemplated running away, but that would make him loose face. As he silently pondered how in the hell he was going to get away, another question was asked, "By the way, I'm interested. Is your hair two color's naturally?"

Several question marks popped over his head at this point…this was getting really creepy, really fast. She was acting like some sort of fangirl, and he had plenty of those without her. After waging an internal battle, he decided to keep going and find out where this went. "Uh… yeah it's been this way since I was a kid…" he said, slowly shifting towards the door.

"That's neat! I've always liked your hair…" she stopped silent, blushing again. She hastily stood up, "Um, I've got to go see Mirage for a bit, I'll see you later Albel…" and she dashed out with no delay.

The minute the door was closed, Albel fell onto the ground in disbelief; that did not just happen… he did not just hear Zelpher compliment him. Okay, this moment was one that he'd never speak of again. After finally righting himself, he decided to get out of there before Zelpher got back and continued to add to the oddities.

He slipped out the door, looking around warily. After that scene, the world seemed to have turned topsy-turvy; any second now, the walls would be attacking him. But his fate was much worse.

He rounded the corner only to bump into the walking mass of stupidity that was Cliff Fittir; finally, he could abolish that memory of Zelpher, and kick this buffoon's ass. But before he could begin his work, yet another awkward question was thrown at him, "Yo, Albel. I trust you enough to answer this truthfuly. Am I attractive?"

"What the f---!" Albel roared, "Why would you ask me that?" he was sure of it now, he was the last sane man in the universe.

Cliff put his hands up defensively, "Whoa man! I don't mean it like that… I just was wondering, if you were a woman, would you find me attractive?"

Albel just stared… this was getting very, very creepy. Zelpher saying she liked his hair, the ape asking if he found him attractive. What was next, would Fayt ask him to marry his daughter?

Albel pulled out of his stunned look to glare at him, "The hell are you asking me for? Ask that blonde wench, she'll answer you"

Cliff looked unsettled, "I don't want to know what she thinks, I'm asking you"

Albel made conscientious decision: on three, he was going to run… fast. _One…_

"Albel?"

_Two…_

"You okay?"

_Three!_ And Albel leapt around and bolted, swinging back into his room. For the second time today, he was sure everyone was insane. Were they all out to get him? Had to be it! It's all some kind of a ploy to get him… well damn if he would fall for it! They had to be joking! It was too weird for them to not be joking. He was firm set that he would not leave this room until things settled back down. But if Zelpher came back… he couldn't kick her out, could he?

"Damn!" he shouted, kicking his boot against the wall. Why did the whole party have to go insane when he was trying to take a break? Why? Suddenly, he heard a knocking at his door. He slowly asked, "Who's there?"

"It's Mirage" a woman answered.

"What do you want?" he snarled.

"It's lunchtime," she said.

Albel was silent, if he went, he'd have to see Zelpher and the gorilla, and that would be painfully awkward. Not to mention the blonde worm would most likely castrate him if she found out what Cliff had asked her… but damn it, he was hungry. Finally he bowed in to his physiological needs, "Alright, fine"

He opened the door and was face to face with Mirage, who had an oddly pink shade on her face. He shrugged it off and started towards the dining room. As he walked, he could swear he felt her eyes on him. He chanced a small glance back and noticed that she was indeed staring at him. But not his back or anything, her gaze rested just below his waist. _By the Gods_, he mused mentally,_ Zelpher likes my hair, the oaf wants my opinion of him, and the worm is ogling my ass… will the wonders ever cease?_

He almost thought about turning around to snap at her, but he decided against it. He'd had enough of the awkward conversations, and at least she was quiet in her workings. After the agonizingly long and increasingly uncomfortable walk, they arrived at the dining room.

He made for his seat when Adray stood and pulled it out for him, Albel raising and eyebrow in suspicion, he would most likely do the "pull the chair out from behind them as they sit" joke. Adray gave him a warm smile, and Albel took the plunge, waiting for the inevitable fall, and the feeling of his dignity going down a couple pegs. Surprisingly, he came to rest on the chair, and Adray made back to his seat. Albel noticed faintly that his action had earned him several looks of disdain, but he made no attempt to question them. He just wanted to eat fast and get the hell out of there.

Nel was seated across from him, and offered another extremely out of place smile to him, and Cliff was at the edge of the table, acting like nothing had happened. Albel slowly tore away from them; he wasn't in the mood to confront either of them. He looked down in disgust at his plate, more space food… disgusting trash that was. Did they really expect him to eat this? It was worse than stuff from a garbage can, and he was no raccoon to sift through other's junk for a free meal, that was Roger's job. But again, his situation put him in a severely unappealing crisis, and what he needed more than ever was to get to solid physiological homeostasis. That said: he was sure any more strife would cast him into a state of extreme primal psychosis.

Albel's thoughts were interrupted when he felt and odd sensation on his left shin. Glancing down, he noted that someone else's foot was gently tracing up and down his leg. Albel took a moment to place whose limb he would be cutting off: long stocking, a boot… Nel. And sure enough, he glanced up to catch a coy smile on her lips. In an attempt to avoid things getting any worse than they could, he shifted his leg closer to himself, effectively stopping her ministrations, and putting a crestfallen expression on her face.

Albel was starting to feel his sanity slipping away. He was hanging on the last thread of a _very_ thin rope at this point, and it didn't help when he felt someone else's foot repeating Nel's actions. _It couldn't be Zelpher, he thought, her legs aren't that long_. He cast another glance down and… oh no… it was… Fayt?

_Son of a bitch,_ he thought. This day was getting crappier and crappier by the minute. First it was Nel, and then it was Cliff, now it was Fayt! He was indefinitely sure that he was going to be molested by one of them during this trip. He had two choices: grin and bear it, or make a mad dash to the transporter and run like there was no tomorrow. He opted for the second choice. He quickly wolfed down what remained of his sub-par meal and excused himself.

After quickening his pace to that of a brisk power walk, he arrived at the transported and stood inside. He pressed the button on the inside and stated his destination, "Elicoor 2!"

No response, "Elicoor 2!" Still nothing. Albel growled and yelled it out several more times, but nix on the teleporting. "Damn" he muttered.

"Thought you could leave could you?" a haughty voice proclaimed. _Oh hell no…_

Sure enough, Maria stepped out of the shadows, how in the hell did she get there that fast? She flipped her hair in her usual overtly confident nature. "I disabled the transporter, dear. It won't start up unless I make it"

She continued to step towards him, Albel feeling his death approach in equal stride, she stopped just in front of him, she righted herself and said, "I might let you go… for a price"

That was more than enough to tell Albel he was screwed. His next plan came in as fast as a flash of lightning: try to bargain out, if it doesn't work; get away from psycho-girl, find a sane person on this ship, and wait out the storm.

"Well… sorry to disappoint you, but I don't make it a habit to bend over for anyone, so how about you just let me go and I'll leave you the use of your left arm…" he growled menacingly.

"Oh but Albel, all I want is a kiss" she whispered, batting her eyelashes.

Albel's eye twitched, "I'd say I'm sorry, but I'd be lying," he said. He quickly took action, ramming her with his armored shoulder just hard enough to knock her over, and dove away from her. _Phase one: complete_.

He was far from safe however, the minute he was out of Maria's sight, he felt something grab the links of chain that dangled from his choker. Soon enough he found his back flat against the wall in a small alcove, pinned to the wall by the body of the redhead who had started all his troubles, Nel Zelpher. "Hey Albel," she purred, "How are you?"

Albel groaned, this was grating on his nerves. Worse than that, Nel's lips were barely an inch from his; this is the part where he was sure his fear of molestation would be finalized.

"Zelpher, back off" he tried vainly to coerce to get off, but she simply pressed herself onto him more, giggling lightly.

"Aw come on Albel" she whispered lightly, "I'm all yours for the taking. I'll drop my maiden's oaths just for you"

"Tempting, but not happening" he let out, placing a hand on each shoulder and pushing her away enough for him to slip away, he just wanted to go to bed... was that too much ask? Back on the lam, he was wondering which of his crazed partners would show up next.

"Hey! Albel!" a voice called, and Albel cringed, he saw Adray. Fearing the worst, he prepared to dash, but Adray offered, "Don't worry, boy, I'm here to help. I don't know what came over them but it hasn't affected me"

Albel was willing to trust the old maggot just this once, he really didn't sound as strange as the rest of them. Albel obliged and followed Adray. Unfortunately, he didn't know that Adray's words were not but a ruse.

He stopped and turned to Albel, his look serious and calculating, "Albel, I must ask you…" Albel had heard that phrase too much today, so he was apprehensive, but took comfort in the seriousness of the gaze.

But poor Albel, Adray stepped into a way too close proximity, his gaze becoming lecherous and, frankly, disturbing. Albel paled and began turning green as Adray pulled his robe bottom down dangerously low, and felt his stomach tighten as the old man started tracing his pectorals with his free hand. Just when it couldn't get worse, the question was propped, "Do I make you horny?"

That did it; Albel turned around and retched, feeling the remnants of his meal spew out in a large globule. The sourness of the bile coated his tongue, and Albel mentally kissed his lunch farewell.

"By the Gods! Someone help me!" he screamed as he tried to ease his rocking stomach. He would regret his shout, for soon the rest of the motley crew happened to have walked in on the scene.

Sophia started out, "Adray! How dare you try and steal my Albel!" she balled her hands and placed them on her hips in a threatening pose.

Adray huffed and crossed his arms, "Your Albel? Don't kid yourself, the boy's mine!" This statement promptly made Albel gag and vomit another large glob of half-digested space food.

Cliff was next, "Both of you shut it, he's gonna end up with me and that's final!" Albel retched again.

Nel talked next, "Since when have you had claims on him! I've known him longer than you!"

Fayt took the next swing, "Yeah you knew about him maybe, but I didn't see him waking you up to ask if you hated him, he obviously wants me!" Albel's gagging increased in volume, and a spattering sound followed.

Nel bristled like a cat that had been thrown in a pool, "Yeah, and he attempted murder on you prior to that!"

Mirage jumped in, uncharacteristically angry looking, "Aren't you a maiden of Aquaria, Nel?"

"Yeah, what's it to you?" Nel retorted.

"If you're a 'maiden' doesn't that mean you're on some sort of chastity oath?" Mirage shot back.

Nel huffed, "So what if I am? I'll do what I damn well please!"

Fayt chuckled, "Denying your oath to your beloved queen? That's new, Nel"

Nel turned on him, "Cram it, you UP3 loving fruitcake!"

Roger chirped in, "Well seeing as how I'm the real man of this group, I think Albel likes me!"

Albel, who had long ago started limping away, gagged again. Fortunately, he had long ago vented all the contents of his stomach, so he could only dry heave. However, the gang now could see him trying to flee.

"He's getting away!" Peppita shouted. Albel groaned and bolted off, the possessed fools in hot pursuit. Rounding one of the nearby corners and flying into the adjacent hallway, he knew he was royally screwed.

"Deep Freeze!" a voice called, soon Albel slipped on the ice-glazed floor and skidded down where he crashed into a wall. Attempting to get up, he was suddenly glomped by the entire gang: all fawning and proclaiming their love for him.

_Jeez, why must I be so damn sexy?_ he thought.

He managed to just wriggle out of the death hold and make a dash for the stairwell. And idea flitted in his mind, and he began charging power to his gauntlet. When he reached the stairs, just before leaping down them he turned and shouted, "Aura wall!" A burst of electricity shot out, and a wall of energy was formed between him and his pursuers. All of them stopped, save for Roger who promptly ran into the wall and was pumped full of high voltage electricity.

That would only hold them for a couple seconds though; he needed to find sanctuary, fast. As he came to a rest in front of a door, it opened, and a pair of arms dragged him inside. He flailed to get out, when a platinum blonde haired woman came into his view and said, "Albel calm down, we aren't possessed"

"Lies!" he shouted, "That gross maggot said the same!"

Steeg, who was currently holding the riled up swordsman started speaking, "It's true, we aren't suddenly finding ourselves madly in love with you. Just calm down!"

Lieber came waltzing into view, "Yeah you jerk! It's hard enough fighting Fayt for Miss Maria's attention, now you run in!" That signified to Albel that they were sane, and he ceased struggling. Steeg let him go, and walked to the door.

"Hide" he said. Albel obliged, and ducked under the bed. Soon the whoosh came to his ears and he heard Maria's voice, asking for his whereabouts. Steeg gave a flawless answer of, "No clue. He just ran down one stairwell and up the other."

"That clever little… he duped us!" she shouted. Sounds of running off could be heard, and Albel sighed, rolling out from his hiding space.

Albel stood up and dusted off his sarong, "Thank you, maggot"

Steeg shook his head, "No problem. But do you have any idea what happened to them?"

Albel thought about it. They had all succeeded in angering one another during their voyage through the Lava Caves. After that, he dropped off at the inn while they went to the inventor's guildhall to play on that blasted table thing. Then a thought slid in, the red liquid they were doused it… they started acting strange after that!

"My guess is that whatever the red substance they got covered in was doing this" he said dejectedly. He was exhausted, and all this thinking wasn't helping. Not to mention, after ralphing up his whole lunch, he was hungry again.

"Do you know what it was?" Marietta asked.

"No. But it was in the inventor's guildhall, so it could have been anything" he responded.

"Maybe we should ask that girl if she knows anything about it" Lieber said.

"The ditzy one with the pigtails? I don't even know her name" Steeg admitted.

Albel put a hand to his forehead, "Her last name's Vineyard, and I remember the blonde ape joking about it. He said something like vineyard being where grapes grow and her first name being like that off an old company that made grape juice"

Steeg brightened, "Welches'! So if her name is the non-possessive of that… is it Welch?"

Marietta strolled to the computer and sat down, typing something. After a minute she turned back to the group and said, "Her she is, Welch Vineyard, inhabitant of Elicoor 2, located in Peterny"

"That's her," Albel said, "Leave for a moment, I need to talk to her"

They all nodded and made to leave, Steeg stopped at the door and said back, "By the way, we set this up so that you can stay here. No one besides us knows the code to open it. The codes 3-4-8-1, so you know. There's a food replicator over there, just type in what you want and it'll make it for you"

Albel nodded, "I'm indebted to you." Steeg smiled and exited. Albel turned his focus back to the computer. He clicked on Welch's name and clicked 'call'.

While the connecting screen flashed up, Albel crossed his arms and crossed his legs, "That wench has some explaining to do…"

* * *

Ugh...That felt like it took forever. I just downloaded and read the first four voulmes of the SOTTEOT manga, and found myself chuckling at the author's interperatation of Nel (though the oddly innocent and rather naive Nel is a stark contrast to the cold and cool-headed Nel we first met, but I figured I could get away with it since they are under the influence of a potion). I also couldn't resist throwing in the Welches' thing, cause that had to be the first thing that came to mind when she said her name. I also way overused the ... thing, so now I close my eyes and all I see is ..., ..., ..., kinda makes me want to punch myself. I also feel I might have inadvertently given away who I intend to be the final pairing. Oh well, if you didn't figure it out, good. If you did and you like the pairing, stick around you'll like it. If you figured it out and don't like it, you can leave. If you figured it out, and while it's not your favorite pairing you still don't have a problem with it, read on, it's still got the craziness part. If you think you have it but you really don't... you're in for a rude shock. Albel's also kind of OOC, but hey, you'd be freaked if you were suddenly the God of everyone's idolatry, not to mention being hit on by Adray... -gag- 

Also, can someone tell me what Lieber and Steeg's collective name is? I know it's Lieber the Quickdraw and Steeg the Sharpshooter, but they have a collective name. It's like "The Binary Star of something-or-another. I want to give them a chapter to be the butt of my cruel and unfair jokes, so I really want to know it...

And like I said in the last chapter, I need someone to help me proofread, cause I suck terribly at it. So if you want to help me out, say so in your review and I'll send you my stuff. I'd also like to acknowledge Fallen Azazel as the first person to review my works, thank you, you have a special place in my heart.

Well, I've succeeded in making my chapter 1,000 words longer with a header and footer, so somwhere in there I must have conveyed my ideas... Jk33 out!


	3. Answers and a Course of Action

Ugh... yet another chapter that felt like it took forever. It's probably cause I'm flying through it, if I took it more in stride I might be less agitated. It's probably also because I'm more used to writing serious stories, so this whole comedy bit is new to me. I also have an idea for a kickass fic that I'm doing next, that also stars our beloved wicked swordsman (sometimes I think I'm one step shy of a fanboy...ick).

To NekuYasha: I wanted to send this to you, but my computer decided to be a total dickwad and crap out on me, so it won't allow me to send anything. If it fixes up, I'll send you one of the next ones.

Still got a bad eye for mistakes, but got a better grammar checker, so I hope it's somewhat better. Most of the mistakes are using the wrong word, like their and there, or hear and here.

Two last things: Someone tell me, cause I'm irritated trying to find it out: how the hell do you pronounce yaoi (it's driving me nuts!). Second, I feel stupid for this one, but I seriously suck at the fourms on this site. The message board things I'm used to clearly denominate a "post reply button" for the thread, but all I see is a reply to each post. So do I have to subscribe to a forum to post topic, or do I just pick the latest post and reply to it? Don't make fun of me, I can't help it if I'm internetally challenged.

* * *

Albel impatiently tapped his fingers against the metal on his claw; this was taking too long for him to just sit there. Finally, the screen flickered, and a young cinnamon-brown haired girl greeted him with and agitated stare, "I was planning on taking a nap, but since you're intent on bugging me, what do you want? God knows I don't work enough without you" she paused as she realized who it was, "A-Albel N-N-N-Nox?" 

Albel flashed the grin that earned him his delectable title, "Evening, Inventor-wench" He grimaced as Welch proceeded to scream loudly about how the man who haunted her dreams was now talking to her, he finally decided to put a stop to her antics, "Cease your bawling, wench! What the hell did you do to those maggots?"

Welch stopped and blinked, "Huh? What maggots?" she queried innocently.

"That blue-haired fool and the others! They go into your workshop to play on that crappy board game, come back doused in some red goo, and now they're all trying to get into my pants!"

Welch snickered, "More like under your skirt!"

Albel growled, "Shut it, wench… just tell me what the hell happened!"

She pulled herself together and had the decency to manage a sheepish grin, "I know I made some kind of contagious love potion, but I don't know the schematics, I need time to assess the entire thing"

"How did they come in contact with it anyway?" Albel asked.

Welch scratched her head; "I accidentally left the potion out in the open"

The Wicked One cocked an eyebrow and said, "So after that pain in the ass forty-five minute lecture about the importance of labeling compounding ingredients and putting potions in a secure place, you go and do that?"

"Yeah…"

Albel sighed, "You're crazy. Not just crazy, stupid. Who'd you have to sleep with to get where you are? 'Cause it sure wasn't good workmanship that got you there!"

Welch's face twisted in a frown, "Hey shut up girly-man! I tried good and hard to work, you don't criticize me…"

Albel was beyond annoyed at this point, so he pressed on, "What can you tell me about this, off the bat?"

She straightened herself, "Only that it's incredibly strong, probably won't wear off even in your lifetime, and that it has some sort of an aphrodisiac that combines with the love effect, which explains the uncontrollable sexual advances they're making"

"So let me get this straight; for the rest of my life, I can expect to be hounded by these people. All madly in love with me, and intent on screwing me. Is that it?"

Welch nodded, "In a nutshell"

"F---!" Albel let out.

"Don't worry, I'll examine it as much as I can. Call me back before you go to bed and I'll tell you my findings" she said.

"Inventor-wench?" he began, Welch perked up to listen to what he was saying, Albel lifted his head so his bangs obscured one eye but left the other in full view, giving him an insanely creepy visage, "If I find out that you've totally butchered the chances of me living a peaceful life, I'm going to find you, and show you exactly what I had to do to earn the name 'wicked'"

Welch gulped, "Sure thing, buddy" and with that she scampered to turn off the contact device. Albel let out a dejected sigh as the machine beeped off, and leaned back in his chair, what in the hell was he going to do?

Surely he couldn't camp out here forever, he'd have to leave to use the bathroom, or go to get something he didn't bring with him. Some vacation this was…

"I'm going to kill you, inventor-wench, don't you dare think otherwise" he let out a little too loud.

"Hey did you hear something?" the disembodied voice of Roger came out, shit…

"I know, it sounded like it came from Lieber and Steeg's panic room…" another voice said, Albel classified this one as Mirage.

"Panic room?" Roger asked.

"They made it so they could 'hide from situations they had no control over'. So in other words, they made a place to hide from Maria when she's on her period"

"She that bad?"

"She tried to shoot us all for simply being up at nine in morning…"

"Psycho…"

"Definitely, we're lucky she's such a slowpoke, else she'd have Crescent Locus'd Cliff's ass into the middle of next week"

"Yikes!"

"Like Cliff always says, 'Sca-ree'"

With that, the sounds of departing footsteps were heard. _Well, that was extremely odd,_ he thought. With nothing to do, he set about refilling his traumatized stomach, again grimacing at the space-food. The stuff was awful; it was a miracle he could keep it down.

After finishing the gruesome hodge-podge that the replicator attempted to pass as fried rice was consumed, he took a moment to reflect on himself. There were some things that you just didn't realize until you're in a life threatening situation: who you truly love, what you really wanted to live like; or in Albel's case, you've left the powerful Crimson Scourge, which could pervert the minds of those it does not choose to be wielded by, in your room.

Albel audibly groaned, his room was upstairs on the other side of the hall; he'd have to navigate the halls whilst simultaneously avoiding his newfound fangirls. This would be tricky. Everyone except Maria was off-duty at this point, and was more likely that not roaming the halls in a desperate attempt to come across him.

Your mission, should you accept it, Albel: sneak undetected through the hallways, arrive at destination point, get the damn sword, and get the hell out. Failure is not an option. "Son of a bitch… I'm gonna kill the fools for making me watch those stupid ass spy movies… frickin' idiots!"

Albel crept to the door, manually opening it slowly, and peering out. Obstacle one: Cliff was less than four doors down, though he was talking aimlessly with Lieber. He slipped out and slid around into the adjacent hallway, softly and silently as a shadow in the night. He proceeded halfway down the hall when obstacle two came. Sophia exited from a door right in front of him.

She brightened at the sight of him and started, "Al-" when she was cut off by a swift smack between the eyes with the side of his metal encased hand. After hiding the unconscious body in the room she left from, he continued.

"That was… quite satisfying," he said as he skulked up the stairs, careful to avoid anyone who was in the immediate path. Obstacle 3: Adray was right by him, less than three feet away. He needed a diversion, and luckily he knew of one that the whole crew knew enough to use. Albel quietly cleared his throat, and using ventriloquism, projected a voice that sounded like Fayt from a distance, "Adray! I've decided to marry your daughter!"

Adray perked and ran in the false direction where he thought he would find Fayt, Albel smirked; damn he was good. He stealthily snuck into his room only to be met with obstacle four: Nel was sleeping on the bed. Nel was a million times more alert when asleep that when she was awake. To top it off, Albel's boots were abnormally loud on the metal floors, and all the senseless running he had done had loosened the buckles that held the pieces of armor together over his burnt arm, and they rattled loud enough to wake a sleeping lum.

Albel sighed, he located the Scourge, and it couldn't be in a worse place. It was propped against the dresser, all the way across the room, and directly next to the sleeping psycho. He finally began his slow creep towards the sword, inching along at a pace that made a sloth look like a cheetah. He cringed at each small noise he made, for it was more than likely enough to rouse her; a mouse's heartbeat was loud enough to drag her out her slumber.

After several rather ungraceful blunders, he found himself within arm's reach of the Scourge, and realized why he hadn't woken her. She was obviously dreaming, and about what he could only surmise, though if anything could tell him, it was the calm smile and flushed cheeks, coupled with the occasional "mmm" sound; so either she was either eating a rather delicious meal, or she was as much of a pervert as she claimed everyone else to be.

He finally, closed his fingers around the Scourge, and slowly pulled it to himself, but Lady Luck did not particularly like him at the moment. Albel noticed that Nel had one of her short swords in her hand, and it was slowly slipping out. If it fell, the point was lined directly with Albel's neck; he gulped. He hurried up his actions to get out of the way of the Death Bringer in her hand, but was too late. The blade slipped out of her hand and plummeted towards his neck. At this moment, the truth behind Albel's choker was revealed; it was only there to keep things from cutting his jugular, and it worked pretty damn well. But, the loud clash of metal and metal caused Nel to stir; she sat partially up, her eye half closed, taking notice of Albel in a half-asleep manner.

"Albel… why are you here?" Nel shook her head, "I must be dreaming…"

Sleep looked like it was slowly fading from her, and soon he'd be in a total mess, unless he could find a way to get her back to sleep. Since she wasn't entirely awake, he was sure he could manipulate her without much effort. The plan that flickered on in his head made his face warm up a bit, and he slightly paled. _If that potion does end up wearing off and she remembers this… I'll be completely screwed,_ he thought. Oh well, it was his only shot; he'd have to take it and hope it'd work.

He fluidly shifted from his startled appearance to a façade of wicked temptation, a slow grin forming and his eyes narrowing. He sat up and moved closer to her, speaking in the huskiest voice he could muster, "Sorry, Zelpher, but that's all it is. But don't worry," he paused to move his hand up to brush her hair aside, not shaking with the anxiety he was feeling, "I'll be sure to visit tomorrow night, and I guarantee that you'll enjoy it greatly"

Albel was rather pleased with himself, he was managing to play his role really well, despite being somewhat afraid that she'd snap out at this exact minute and beat the tar out of him; sure he could beat her in a duel any day, but when she was mad, fighting her was like playing with matches in a room full of gunpowder.

His efforts paid off, and she slowly lay back down, "You promise" she asked almost juvenilely.

"I promise" he said.

"Okay" and she drifted back off to sleep.

Albel let out a sigh of relief; that was grueling. This was the exact reason he didn't pursue a career in acting. He stood and made to the door, his mind playing through on his ego trip, _Greatest spy of Aquaria my ass, she's a complete pushover…_

After opening the door and setting off again he realized something, in his elation in retrieving his sword, he had failed to begin sneaking again, and found himself in another bad predicament: he was face-to-face with Fayt.

"Hey, Albel" he said, winking

_What do I do, now? I can't act like this one's a dream!_

**Kill him!**

_Can't, he's the innocuous boy-leader. If I kill him I'll just piss everyone off…_

**The rest of them don't give a damn, they only want to f--- your brains out!**

_True, but I still can't, too great a risk in playing those cards_.

**Then what the hell do we do?**

_We stop talking to ourselves and get out before this gets any weirder._

**Wait, if we're talking to ourselves, how can we hear each other?**

_Because we're the same person dumbass!_

**Oh yeah!**

_Jeez, I didn't know my subconscious was such a moron…_

**Shut up!**

"Fayt! How dare you?" someone shouted.

"Crap!" Albel let out, finally brought from his internal duel. He noticed that every member of the party, save for Nel and Maria, was in one of the branching hallways, glaring daggers at Fayt. _Déjà vu_, he thought.

Peppita stepped up, "You big meanie, hogging Albel to yourself! Share!" Albel blanched, _That's sick. I'm not a pedophile, damn it!_

Fayt turned to meet them with an equally fierce gaze, "Never! He's all mine!"

Albel stomach churned, _Hell no, I just ate!_

The shouting brought Maria and Nel onto the scene, and soon things were looking to turn into an all-out brouhaha. Albel slowly and carefully began to inch away before they snapped out of their argument to give chase. This time, he was lucky, and managed to get back into his hideout.

The rest of the day passed in much the same manner. He'd have to exit for some reason or another and end up getting caught, only to have the rest of the group show up to get in another argument and have him slip away. By the end of the day, he was so exhausted he didn't even feel like calling Welch. But in the end, he did.

He growled while the screen flashed the 'calling' signal, annoyed at how long it was taking. After three minutes of waiting, Welch appeared on screen, slightly disheveled and tired-looking; it must have been a long day for her too.

"Hi Albel," she tried to chirp, "I figured some thing out"

Albel croaked, "Lay it on me…"

Welch righted herself and said, "I might as well start by telling you how love potions work, else I'll have to stop every ten seconds to explain. Normally, ingredients in a love potion cause the development of a static, non-active bacterium. A person would then add some of their blood to the mix, which would synthesize with the organisms, and create a working cell. Understand so far?" Albel nodded and she continued, "After the bacteria reached this stage, the potion could be slipped into food or something, and be administered into a host body, namely the one that the user intends to deceive. After it was in, it would begin to act like a parasite, feeding on waste chemicals in the brain, harmlessly, while secreting its own chemical, which contained the essence of the person whose blood was added. This was what created the feeling of love"

"Makes enough sense" Albel said.

Welch pressed on, "Well, normally the bacteria would be unable to function for more than a couple of days, then wear off and have to be administered again. Or if it could last longer, it was given a suicide gene to make it terminate itself after a while. Love potions aren't one hundred percent legal. Normally, people just make potions that stimulate feeling for someone, like the Tears of Venus. One that forces someone to love them is considered tampering with matters they have no business in, which is why I would normally have to get rid of the batch I created"

Albel nodded again, "Go on."

"Well, the thing is, this one can continue on it's own, and has no suicide gene. Also, all the genes are telepathically linked, and are activate by the first name to be said by anyone after coming into contact. One of my attendants said he accidentally let your name slip after they got doused. In addition, something I added makes it so nothing can cancel it out, save for emotion"

Albel blinked, "Explain that emotion bit"

"Well, if the person who the potion was making them love really did love them, or was under the influence of something that made them love them, and shared a kiss with emotion behind it, the effect would terminate on all of those effected"

Albel blinked again and propped a question, "So basically, even if they did have feeling for the person, it wouldn't do good because the effect would just wear off? That doesn't sound like a love potion; that sounds like a 'set-someone-up-for-a-life-of-misery-then-make-it-so-that-once-they-manage-to-fall-in-love-with-them-through-the-endless-chaos-the-other-snaps-out-of-it-and-hurdles-you-into-a-world-of-unrequited-love-potion'. I don't think that will sell too well"

Welch grinned sheepishly, "There are some kinks…"

"You suck…"

"Hey!"

Albel pressed on, "What else can you tell me?"

Welch explained, "Lot much that's helpful. Just that if the potion comes into contact with hair, metal, or any fibers like clothes or cloth, it'll kill the bacteria immediately. In order to have it take effect, it must hit bare skin or be ingested. You can tell if the bacteria is dead or not by the consistency. If it's a liquid, it's active. If it has cohesion and is sort of like a gel, it's dead"

Albel sighed, "Anything else"

"Yes, but it's not exactly all that helpful"

"I'll take whatever I can get"

"If you kiss a person effected by the potion without any emotion, you can stun them temporarily, and they won't remember you kissing them or anything that happened during the time they were incapacitated"

"Huh?" Albel's face contorted in confusion.

Welch told him, "If you need a ten second distraction, just give them a half-second peck on the lips, if you need like an hour" Welch winked, "Just give them some tongue"

Albel stared at her, "You are extremely scary when you say that…"

Welch bristled, "Whatever, now leave me alone! I'll call you if something new comes up!" and with that she disconnected. Albel needed to tell the unaffected members the game plan, so he called them in.

Albel sighed and started when they were all there, "According to the inventor-wench, the only way that I can get them to snap out of it is to actually fall in love with one of them, then express my emotions with a kiss"

At those words, they all got starry-eyed. Marietta giggled, "I love playing matchmaker!"

Albel was worried, "Oh crap…"

Steeg chirped, "Me too!"

Lieber was next, "Me three!"

Albel groaned, "Faggots…"

Marietta proclaimed in a business like manner, "I think Albel should go with Sophia"

Albel stammered, "What the? Shouldn't I be deciding?" they ignored him.

Steeg scoffed, "And why is that?"

Marietta turned to him, "Because they're opposites, and opposites attract. Think about it! Sophia's a timid and peaceful girl, while Albel is ferocious and powerful. They'd be a totally kawaii couple!"

Albel was puzzled, "Kawaii? What the hell?" Still got ignored.

Lieber was next, "Well he can't have Miss Maria! What do you think Steeg?"

"I think Albel should be with Mirage. Both are silent and solitary, and I think Albel would admire her strength"

Albel looked at him, "We've dueled eighteen times, I've won every time, she's pitiful, more so than the weasel-brat!" Again he was ignored.

"But Mirage should be with Cliff! They're practically an item!" Marietta objected.

"Ugh…"

Lieber put his two cents in, "But if it's opposites attract, and Albel would love someone based on strength, shouldn't he be with Miss Nel?"

Albel didn't even try to speak up; they were lost in la-la land.

"But Nel hates him! She told me so at last year's Halloween Party!" Marietta said.

"Yeah, after she consumed like twenty glasses of the punch that Cliff spiked. And she was mad that Albel was being hit on by random fangirl number who-knows-what! Didn't she cry too?" Lieber shouted.

"What the f---?" Albel asked.

"What about the guys?" Steeg said.

Albel roared, "No way! I am NOT gay! NO WAY!"

Marietta blinked and said, "Really, I thought that maybe you might be… on account of the skirt"

Albel glared at her, "It's a sarong, I wear it cause it allows freedom of movement, which my style of swordsmanship depends on. Please, tell me how having a sense of fashion that the rest of the world fails to comprehend and enjoying the prospect of two men nailing each other correlates"

"But then what's up with the slit? Or the midriff shirt?" Lieber asked.

Albel grumbled, "Aesthetics, my simpleton maggot, aesthetics"

Several "ah's" floated around the room. Then attention was turned back to him, "What about Peppita?"

"I'm not a pedophile, maggot!" Albel shouted at him.

"Okay, so that means this is pretty much narrowed down to a Sophia vs. Nel vs. Mirage vs. Maria"

"Hey!" Lieber shouted.

Steeg looked at him, "Sorry Lieber, but she is an option" Lieber pouted.

Albel groaned, this was definitely going to be a battle. One that would end in extreme displeasure, he almost contemplated just killing them all, but then he'd be stuck on this ship, unable to operate it. An idea hit Albel's mind, "She said a love potion would work. Could we get one and use it so I just pick one and get out once it wears off?"

Steeg shook his head, "No dice. Love potions are highly illegal in the galaxy. If we even try to get one, we'll be screwed. Plus, Maria's got us locked on the ship, and she's intent on strangling us all until she gets you"

"I see" Albel nodded. He reached back and undid both of his hair wraps, bringing the cloth forward and tying them into a braided rope, before forming a noose. He stood on a chair and tied the noose to one of the beams on the ceiling, "If that's the case, I'll just kill myself and get done with it right now"

Marietta knocked him off the chair before he could slip into the noose, "No Albel, we'll get you out of this somehow. Just give us time"

Albel covered his head with his arms. This was going to tax him to the extreme; he just knew it. _Oh well_, he thought, _ladies and gentlemen, Albel Nox has to go fall in love._

* * *

Poor Albel... ha! I had to come up with love potion explanation bit by myself, and I think I did rather good with it. And yes, I actually used the word brouhaha! I first thought it was a mistranslation, or a case of Engrish when I heard it in the Albel and Fayt ending, but no, it actually means something. Also, sorry for the lack of humor, but this one was intended to just be there to set up what happens next. Next chapter will be a ton funnier, trust me. 

But anyhow, I don't think this will be a very long story. I've come up with a million and one ways to end this, but nothing to put in between. So here's my plan: the next chapter puts Lieber and Steeg (The Binary Star Lazeria) in the spotlot. After that, I'm thinking one more chapter to make Albel suffer, then I'm concluding this. Sorry if you wanted it to be longer, but I don't have much motivation.

On another matter, after I finish this one, I'll be working on that serious fic I mentioned. If you want to know what it is, it's sort of my twisting of the adventure with Albel. In my version, he's much meaner, eviler, and more cynical. Not to mention I completely god-moded him to the point where he kicks Fayt, Cliff, and Nel's asses at the Berequel Mountain Path (I was annoyed that he was considered the greatest swordsman on Gaitt, yet a little boy who had never seen battle before, an oaf with the IQ of an apple, and a workoholic tomboy could apparently thrash him. Don't get me wrong, I like then and all but... come on!). It will follow the storyline mostly, just there'll be more of Albel beating the crap out of anything that moves, and much less of the annoying UP3 loving fruitcake. So if you think I'm good here, read it, cause it'll be tons better, and several times longer. It will be rated M for a lot of violence in addition to language.

On the note of language, I continue to bleep the f-word. I only do this cause I did rate this as a T story, and treat this place like my friends' houses: I don't know how many times I can drop the f-bomb in front of the kids until I've overstayed my welcome. You know what I'm implying, I just don't want me first story to be deleted because of something as meager as using a four letter word too much.

Well, I did it again. Made my header and footer longer than the chapter itself... I suck.


	4. The Binary Star Lazeria's First Job

Okay, next chapter! Thank you Fallen Azazel for telling me how to pronounce that word that shall never show up in my fics. I actually had this chapter done almost two hours after I finished the last chapter (I'm a very fast typist, and I come up with stuff fast) but I delayed putting it up; Witch Hunter Robin was on, followed by Elfen Lied. This chapter got distorted for many reasons. One, I had a song stuck in my head, so that got put in there. Two, I had just watched an episode of "The Office" so a joke from that got put in there... yeesh.

Writing Albel's language has taken it's toll on me, just this night at dinner I asked my dad to, "Pass the salt, maggot". It's gotten kinda weird. I've also decided to forgo putting another chapter of weirdness up, so the next chapter is the conclusion to this story. I've also decided to hold off on my serious fic because I've got a good idea for another comedy, and seeing as how I'm better at them than I thought I was, I think I'll go along with it.

So yeah, disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean 3, The Office, Rammstein, or anything else I've screwed around with here... happy? I think I might trademark the phrase "UP3 loving fruitcake" thought, just so I can have it all to myself... enjoy!

* * *

"I've got a full house" Steeg proclaimed. 

"Go fish!"

"Lieber, for the forty-eighth freaking time, we're playing poker!"

"Go fish!"

"Ugh…"

Albel threw his cards down; they had been playing this game since dawn. The fools decided to alleviate some stress by playing a good old game of poker. Unfortunately, it got boring after hour number four. Now, all Albel really wanted was to just be done with this. It had been four days of this nonsense, and he had made no leeway at all. He had attempted on several occasions to interact with the women on the ship that were still game. First there was when he tried talking with Sophia:

-Flashback-

Albel walked into Sophia's room, and within ten seconds, he found himself flat on the ground with Sophia's arms around him. Albel very nearly stabbed her; no one tackles Albel Nox!

"Listen, Esteed mag—err…Sophia?" it killed him to use her name. It was akin to eating a razor blade. But it made her perk up fast.

"Oh Albel, I knew you loved me!" and she proceeded to move her lips closer to his. He had told Welch that if she had lied about the kiss-stun thing he would haunt her in her sleep, so he knew it worked. But… he just couldn't do it. She was suddenly cut of with a hard thwack between the eyes with his gauntlet. Albel stood up and left the room, intent on never being in the same room as her again.

-End Flashback-

Then there was Mirage:

-Flashback-

Albel met with Mirage in the hallway of the Diplo, he got her attention, then attempted to open with what sounded like a sincere greeting, "Ahem, hello… Mirage. I was… wondering if I could talk you for a moment…" he stammered awkwardly.

Mirage brightened, "Sure thing, Albel"

Albel continued, "I was wondering… maybe you could… you know, tell me about yourself." There, he got it out; good start right? At least Mirage wasn't crazy.

Okay scratch that, the minute the question left his mouth, he found she had pressed herself against him and placed her lips on his, though the second that she did, her eyes glazed over, and she fell to the ground in a heap. Well, at least now he knew for certain it worked.

-End Flashback-

Not to mention Nel:

-Flashback…again!-

Albel sat down on the couch in his old room. Nel cast her emerald eyes onto him, questioningly. He beckoned her to sit with him. After the terrible attempts so far, he could very well guess where this would end up… it wasn't looking good.

"I never asked you back… what's your favorite color?" he said.

Nel pondered, "I'd have to say red, it's what comes to mind first"

Albel chuckled, "I suppose I should have seen that—" he was cut off when he felt Nel's lips meet is and her tongue go inside his opened mouth. Just like Mirage, Nel instantly fell limp and lay motionless. Albel sighed and got up.

-End Flashback-

Let's not even talk about Maria:

-Flashback… this is killing me-

Didn't you hear me? We aren't going there! It's too weird… all right fine!

Albel entered the transporter room, and sure enough, found Maria waiting for him. He looked at her and then the transporter… and he got an idea. He turned to her and said, "I've got a proposal"

"Oh, and what is that?"

"If you turn the transporter on, I'll give you that kiss" he said begrudgingly.

Maria considered it and finally said, "I'll do it but" she suddenly pushed herself onto him and put one hand below his waist, coming dangerously close to his manhood, "But it'll take more than a kiss…"

Albel was pissed, too much of this one goddamn day! He began to growl, and Maria's eyes opened wide and incandescent red flames began to lick his skin, "Albel?" she asked.

All was quite on the ship, and the silence was destroyed with a loud cry, "DRAGON ROAR!!!" followed by a sound similar to that of an exploding bomb mixed with roaring dragons. Then all was quite again.

-End Flashback…jeez-

So now it was clear, there was no way out of this incident. Things couldn't get worse, he thought, but the cruel bastard known as reality had different plans. The fluorescent lights began to flicker, and soon went out.

"Damn" Steeg said loudly.

"What?" Albel called from the darkness.

Lieber explained, "This room runs on an auxiliary power unit we have set up, the battery must have died, so we need to replace it."

"Where do we get said battery?" Albel asked.

"I think there's a bunch of them in the cargo bay" Steeg said.

"Then let's go"

"We can't everyone's roaming the halls as we speak, we'll get caught"

"Shit… what do we do then"

Marietta turned on a small electric lantern that lit the room up and said, "We'll have to spilt into two teams, one team will go get the battery and hook it up, the other will distract the crew"

Lieber and Steeg's eyes sparkled and their mouths opened in a wide smile, both looked to each other and stood up, Lieber began, "Trouble is afoot? This is a problem indeed…"

Steeg stepped in, "But no problem is too much for…"

Lieber randomly pulled out two guns and proclaimed, "Lieber the Quickdraw!"

Steeg flourished a rifle in the same manner, "and Steeg the Sharpshooter!"

In unison, they both fell into a grandiose pose and shouted, "And together we are… The Binary Star Lazeria!"

Marietta and Albel blinked, "What the hell was that?" Albel asked.

Steeg shrugged, "We needed a gimmick. Thought I still say we'd have gotten more jobs if we went with my name" he sneered at Lieber, who through his arms up, exasperatedly.

"For God's sake Steeg, The Two-Headed Dragon was just stupid, and you lost the coin toss!"

"Bullshit! It was a double headed coin!" Steeg accused.

"Marietta gave us the coin, and we checked, it had a heads and a tails side!"

Marietta interjected, "Sorry, Steeg, but he is right…"

Steeg huffed and sat down, folding his arms and pouting like a small child. Albel stepped in, "So you fools will keep them occupied, and the woman and I will get the battery?"

Steeg answered, "That's the plan"

"How are we going to get them?" Lieber asked.

Steeg put his hand to his ear and began fumbling with the hook of his glasses. After a time he came up with something, "We've still got those props we bought for the Halloween Party Show right?"

"Yes" Marietta said.

"Okay then, here's the plan. Since we haven't gotten any jobs as guns-for-hire, we'll say we've decided to try a two-man comedy and theatrical group. We'll say we wanted to see what we have"

Lieber nodded, "That settles that, how will we stay in contact?"

Marietta answered, "I'll take my communicator, Steeg will take his. Put the ring on 'vibrate' and set it so it'll block calls from everyone but me, that way when you feel the communicator vibrate, you'll know it's a mission accomplished"

Steeg patted her on the back, "Brilliant!" He made the necessary adjustments to his communicator, and then called Cliff, "Say Cliff, you mind getting everyone and meeting me in the Conference Room? Okay then, see you in a bit"

Lieber had gone sifting through the closet, when he pulled out a large wooden crate. Steeg opened the crate, and smiled at the contents. He then turned up and said to the two remaining members of the team, "Okay, wait here, once everyone's there, I'll call you and tell you to go. I'll also make up an excuse for your whereabouts"

Marietta put her hands on her hips and glared at him, "You better not try to pull the 'she has morning sickness, Lieber must have knocked her up' excuse again…"

Steeg paled, "I learned my lesson last time, thank you very much. I'll say you have a fever"

Marietta smiled, "Good then"

So the Binary Star Lazeria left, leaving Albel and Marietta in the sub-lit room, after a few seconds Albel asked, "They're going to make complete asses out of themselves aren't they?"

"Yep"

--

Steeg looked into the conference room and did a quick head count: Cliff, Fayt, Mirage, Sophia, Nel, Peppita, Roger, Maria, Adray, the whole crew. With that said and done, he lifted his communicator, "All set. Now get going". He heard an affirmative and moved on.

"Good morning everyone!" Steeg shouted.

Cliff didn't look too pleased at this little thing that was hindering his plans, "What is it Steeg?"

Steeg wasn't fazed by the hostility in his voice, "Well, you've all been trying so hard to find Albel, we thought you could use a break. Plus, we have an issue of our own…"

The group nodded, and Cliff said, "A break would be nice… what's the issue?"

Steeg puffed his chest out and said, "Well, since The Binary Star Lazeria hasn't been getting any contracts on our guns-for-hire premises, we've decided to take a new role. We'll be doing entertainment!"

Maria looked at Steeg like he was crazy; "You do realize every time you try to entertain someone, you end up making a complete ass of yourself, right?"

"Yes I do!" he shouted. Everyone groaned.

Lieber stepped in, "Don't worry, since I'm helping it won't be a total wipeout"

Steeg glared at him and continued, "So anyway, we want to show you guys our act. Please?" Steeg attempted to pull the puppy-dog eyes look, but ended up looking like a complete retard.

"Fine! Just never do that again!" Mirage shouted, everyone else promptly shouted their agreements.

"Great then, let's start. First, we came up with our own songs and such!" Steeg opened the prop-box and pulled out a guitar and an amp. Lieber pulled out a sound machine and a bass guitar. After setting up, they began a rhythm, and Steeg began the vocals:

_A little girl saw a rose_

_It bloomed there in bright heights_

_She asked her sweetheart_

_If he could fetch it for her_

_She wants it and that's fine_

_So it was and so it will always be_

_She wants it and that's the custom_

_Whatever she wants she gets_

_Deep wells must be dug_

_If you want clear water_

_Rose-red, oh rose-red_

_Deep waters don't run still_

_The boy climbs the mountain in torment_

_He doesn't really care about the view_

_Only the little rose is on his mind_

_He brings it to his sweetheart_

_She wants it and that's fine_

_So it was and so it will always be_

_She wants it and that's the custom_

_Whatever she wants she gets_

_Deep wells must be dug_

_If you want clear water_

_Rose-red, oh rose-red_

_Deep waters don't run still_

_Deep wells must be dug_

_If you want clear water_

_Rose-red, oh rose-red_

_Deep waters don't run still_

_At his boots, a stone breaks_

_Doesn't want to be on the cliff anymore_

_And a scream lets everyone know_

_Both are falling to the ground_

_She wants it and that's fine_

_So it was and so it will always be_

_She wants it and that's the custom_

_Whatever she wants she gets_

_Deep wells must be dug_

_If you want clear water_

_Rose-red, oh rose-red_

_Deep waters don't run still_

_Deep wells must be dug_

_If you want clear water_

_Rose-red, oh rose-red_

_Deep waters don't run still_

And with that, Steeg finished and the final notes rang out. Everyone clapped, "That was really good!" Cliff shouted.

"Except for one problem" Nel said.

"What?"

Nel shrugged, "That wasn't an original composition, that was the song Rosenrot by Rammstein, they just translated it"

All eyes turned to them, and Steeg shouted, "Shit! She's onto us! That song was made like 730 years ago on Earth, how the hell do you know about it?"

Nel explained, "Mirage taught me how to use an MP3"

Lieber turned to Steeg, "See! I told you that was a bad idea! If an Elicoorian from an undeveloped planet can figure it out, people from developed planets definitely can!"

"Shut up! It was a good idea at the time!" he defended.

"No it wasn't if we pulled this shit in the real business we'd get our asses sued!"

"Shut up stalker-kid! Fine, we'll find something else to do, now shut your whiney ass up!"

--

Albel and Marietta had long since left the confines of the hideout, and were moving along. They had stopped in the cargo bay; Albel was completely dumbstruck. There were thousands of boxes stacked several feet high, and set to make a large labyrinth that they had to weave through.

"Where do we start?" Albel asked.

Marietta shrugged, lifting the electric lantern higher, "Every box has a label, so we should look for, 'spare parts' or 'batteries', though I have no idea where they are. We haven't organized this since Quark started"

Albel continued to stare, "No shit…"

--

After the abysmal first attempt, they decided on their second show. Lieber reached into the box and pulled out a small furry animal with a long tail and spikes.

"Porcupine!" Roger shouted while everyone took fighting stance.

Lieber held the animal close, "Don't you dare hurt Mr. Quills!" he began stroking the creature, spikes and all, "Did they scare you boy?"

"Okay, Lieber, you've freaked us out enough, begin the show!" Steeg shouted.

Lieber cast a "you suck" glance at Steeg, then went on, placing Mr. Quills on the ground, "Okay now, Mr. Quills, you know the drill!" Lieber put his legs together and held this arms out, making a T with his body. The porcupine began climbing up Lieber's body, crawling around his limbs, swinging with its tail, and performing a number of acrobatic feats that were nothing short of incredible for the ball of spikes and fur. It finished leaping off of Lieber's head, doing a triple back flip, and landing on all fours in front of him.

The gang stood and clapped, "Bravo!" Fayt shouted. Mr. Quills seemed to enjoy the attention a little too much, for he puffed up and shot a lone spike from his back. Time slowed as people watched the spike ricochet off the walls four times, and end its journey planted in the mound of flesh that was Fayt's buttock.

Eye's widened and Lieber cringed, Fayt merely stood, transfixed until the pain registered, "Oh my God!!!"

Fayt began jumping up and running around the room while the gang tried to subdue him to remove the offending projectile. Lieber was busy scolding the animal, "Bad Mr. Quills, bad!"

Steeg rounded on him, "Lieber quit talking to the damn quill-rat and help us!"

"Fine!" Lieber put Mr. Quills back in the box with a reassuring pat on the head, then ran off to get a hold of the enraged blue-haired spazoid that was currently causing chaos.

"Lieber I'm going to kill that damn thing!" he shouted.

"Don't blame Mr. Quills, he just got excited!" Lieber returned, hoping to spare the life of his furry companion. Finally, Cliff managed to pull a Fiery Tackle on Fayt and knock him down, while the rest of the crew pinioned him and Steeg attempted to remove the arrow-sized barb lodged in the flesh. Fayt cringed and tears watered his eyes with every pull.

"Stop, that hurts!" he cried.

"Don't be such a baby, I'll bet you've had more painful things stuck in your ass before!" Steeg retorted hotly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's calling you a queer" Adray answered.

"You bastard!"

"Well you have been trying to get into bed with Albel recently…"

Fayt blushed, "That's my issue not yours! And if I recall correctly, you are too!"

Steeg shouted, "Shut up!" and ripped the barb out. Sophia then sealed the wound with a healing spell. "It's out now, okay! Moving on!" Steeg shouted while the members regained their positions.

--

"Ow! Be careful Albel!"

"Quit whining!"

"This is your fault you know! You just had to have the great idea to go and do this!"

"Hey, it took two to get here, so don't put all the blame on me!"

"Ouch! You're crushing me!"

"I can't do anything about that! I need to get angled right or we'll be wasting energy and getting nothing!"

"Sorry…"

"Jeez, you complain a lot you know that? Can't you just grin and bear it?"

"Well sorry, but it's not like I've been in this position before!"

"Whatever, just push along with me and we'll be done faster, then we can get back on track!"

"Fine…"

Over the next several minutes, loud grunting and groaning could be heard. Finally, one loud shout penetrated the silence, and only soft panting noises could be heard.

"There, that wasn't too bad was it?"

"You weren't in the position to be complaining! No more of your stupid ideas!"

"Hey, first of all, you agreed to it. Second, it was a good idea! All these boxes are in the way, so I say climb over them, I didn't know one would fall and pin you to the ground okay?"

"Whatever, let's just get back to it…"

--

"Well, we've totally f---ed up our act so far, what should we screw up on next?"

Cliff raised his hand, "How about you guys do something that involves the audience?"

Lieber glanced at Steeg, and then whispered something to him. Steeg's eyes widened and he smiled. "We've got it!" all eyes turned to him, "We're going to make fun of someone from history, or from modern time, and the audience will guess who it is!"

Sophia chirped, "That sounds fun!" several agreements came.

Lieber said, "I'll go first!"

He pulled up a chair onto the table and sat in front of the audience, looking like he was thinking. Finally he straightened up and began his monologue, "I'm the biggest douche to exist in modern times. I like to make a big damn deal over every little thing that doesn't go the way I want it, like a little toddler. I pretend that my opinions mean something, even though no one gives half a damn! I also like to try and make other people feel small so that I can feel better about myself, even though I'm the bitch of every man, woman, and child in existence!"

"Lasselle!" Nel shouted.

"Bingo!" Lieber said.

Steeg took Lieber's place in the chair, then crossed his legs and began in a girlish voice, "I was the biggest pain in the ass daddy's girl of the twenty first century. I thought I could get away with anything because daddy was too much of a pushover to punish me. It didn't matter than I was driving drunk, or that I released several videos of uncensored pornography of myself, cause I could just buy my way out of it, whine to daddy, or sleep with some lawyer guy. I think I'm a total hotshot, but I'm really just a spoiled little bitch who needs her parent's to cut her off and teach her some humility"

The group thought, then Fayt answered, "Paris Hilton!"

"Damn you're good!"

"No, you're just obvious!" Fayt replied.

Steeg growled, "Fine, then who am I now? My mother is dead, my father is against everything I stand for, and I bedded my sister. Who am I?"

"Luke Skywalker"

"Damn! Just you wait Leingod, I'll get you!"

--

Albel and Marietta had finally located some crates that could have held the batteries, but found nothing. Marietta turned to Albel and said, "Steeg's stuff should be on the other side of this shelf. He may have some batteries, can you go check?"

"Yeah" Albel responded. He walked around and found a box labeled, "Steeg's junk". Taking the box down, he began to sift through the contents.

"Anything?" Marietta asked.

"Just a couple rifles, some old porn magazines, chewing gum, and some pictures of you in the shower… nice tattoo by the way; a butterfly on the left ass cheek, subtle yet erotic" Albel's face suddenly met the open palm of Marietta's hand.

"Never speak of this again, got it?" she snarled at him.

"Okay!" he said, throwing his hands up. Marietta continued to huff, muttering something about having Steeg's head on a plate.

"Hey this one's your stuff! You got anything?" Albel shouted, opening a box labeled "Marietta's items".

"No, don't!" she shouted, lunging for the box, but it was too late, Albel was reading through and old diary she had thrown in there.

"Dear Diary, Lieber was staring at Maria again today. He always complains about unrequited love, I wish he knew how I felt…" Albel read, and then turned to Marietta, her face beet red. "Aw, that's so sweet…" he crooned vindictively.

"Shut up!" she shouted, but then smirked, "Yours is here too, let's see what you got!"

"Nothing as bad as this" he said, flourishing the diary. Marietta tore the "Property of Albel Nox" box open, but stopped horror struck. The box was filled with leather clothes, whips, collars, claw polish, restraints; you'd think it was the Inquisitor's box.

"I know one thing now…" she started, "Whichever woman you do end up with… she's going to have a very adventurous sex life"

Albel smirked, "The fools are busy keeping them occupied, let's look through everyone else's crap!"

Marietta beamed and said, "Sounds fun!"

--

"Ainbow-ray onnection-cay" Lieber sang, strumming a banjo.

Maria looked seriously freaked out, "What prompted Lieber to sing 'Rainbow Connection' in pig-Latin?"

Steeg shrugged, "We saw it on 'The Office' once…" he explained.

"It's killing me," Fayt said.

"Well, he thought we might get points for sheer stupidity…"

Lieber stopped playing, "Fine then, what should we do?" he put his hands on his hips in question.

Roger intervened, "How about you do an extreme freestyle rap battle?"

Lieber snapped and swung the banjo at Roger, smacking him with enough force to bring down a Killer Whale. Roger went flying and crashed into the wall. Steeg took the banjo from Lieber and whaled on him with the same force screaming, "No fricking way! It's bad enough that crap's been dominating the radio for 700 years; it'll never come from my mouth! Never!"

"Should we stop him?" Fayt asked.

Nel took up the answer, "Normally I'd say yes, but considering all the times he's attempted to grab my ass, just let it go"

"Sounds good"

--

Albel and Marietta were seated on the floor, laughing like loons in the full moon. Both were reading books while odd smoke twisted in the air, "Man, Cliff's going to be so mad that we smoked all his pot!"

"Who gives a damn, listen to this" he said, holding up Maria's diary and reading, "Today I saw Fayt taking a bath in the hot spring. He has such a good body!" Albel began laughing even harder.

"Think that's bad, listen to what Mirage wrote: today Cliff and Albel were dueling again, when Albel's claw ripped into Cliff's shirt. His abs were on perfect display, and my hormones went insane!" Marietta began crying tears of hilarity.

Albel laughed harder, he brandished Adray's journal and began, "I'm concerned for Clair and Nel: they've been working hours upon hours again. It's killing me to know that they aren't even considering options. They desperately need to loosen up and get laid. They keep bringing up some stupid thing about 'maiden's oaths' or something, but who really cares. Maybe I'll buy them some of those 'vibrator' things that Cliff keeps going on about for Christmas, that way they'll at least work off some stress" Albel began turning blue from laughing, "Now that's fatherly dedication!"

Marietta nodded in agreement, "My own father should have loved me that much!"

"Ah... this was fun…"

"Yeah… let's get back to work, though, we've wasted a lot of time!"

And so, they got up and began walking again, when Albel tripped over something. Enraged, he turned on the object and prepared to toss it, when Marietta promptly shouted, "Stop!" she took the object and examined it, "Albel, this is a battery!"

"Really?" he asked, disbelievingly.

"Yes!"

"Let's go hook it up then!"

They ran out of the cargo bay and into the engine room. They found the correct power generator and replaced the battery. They then ran back to the room and to their marvel, all the electric things were back online.

"Yes!" Marietta shouted, exchanging a high-five with Albel. She then sent Steeg a message with her communicator.

--

Steeg, who was holding his hand out dramatically and performing the "to be or not to be" soliloquy from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was mid-speech proclaiming, "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely the pangs of despised love, the law's delay..." when he was cut off by a buzzing noise and a vibration in his pocket. He glanced around at his audience, who had long since dozed off and was now peacefully sleeping.

"Lieber, mission accomplished, let's get out of here!" he silently called to him. Lieber woke up and nodded, grabbing the prop-box and fleeing the scene of the crime.

The group reassembled in the hideout, and exchanged congratulations, even from Albel. Suddenly, the computer informed them of an incoming transmission from Welch. Albel answered the call, and Welch's happy face popped up on screen and twittered, "Great news, Albel"

"You have a cure?" he asked, hopefully.

"Hell no, I told you it was incurable, and I meant it. But I got a grant from your king to produce more of it!"

Albel scratched his head, "Why would he do that?"

Welch beamed, "It seems that the King of Greeton made a fat joke about his mother during a peace ceremony. So now he's going to have the Dragon Brigade drop the potion all over every city in Greeton and have them start shouting his name. Then the King of Greeton will apparently know what happens when you mess with Airyglyph! It's great, I've got so much of it I don't have anywhere to put it all!"

"And you thought I'd like to know this why?" he asked.

Welch bristled, "Fine, I don't care. I just thought you'd be happy to know at least something good came out of this!" she stuck her tongue out at Albel then disconnected.

"Forget about her Albel, let's celebrate" Steeg said, using the replicator to create several bottles of Winking Sage Cider. All seemed good for now, but they did not count on the fact that everyone else was right outside the door.

Maria turned to Mirage, "Mirage?"

"Yes?"

"Set a course for Elicoor 2, I want to be there in less than an hour"

"Understood captain" came the response. The member's of the crew all walked away, evil grins plastered on their faces.

* * *

Haha! Albel's gonna have his work cut out for him! I'd like to think that this chapter is good, but I'd also like to think I have a billion dollars and get paid to sit and screw around all day. Sadly, neither of those are true, so I need you all to decide upon the greatness of my writing talent with your reviews. Please send reviews! 

I don't know where the Mr. Quills bit came from, so don't ask. I think it's enjoyable though, so I put it in. I don't think I did a particularily awesome job with the "not what you think" bit, but I wanted to give it a try.

So next up, Albel's fate will be decided. Who will it be? Stick around and find out... or not... see what I care... all right I'm kidding please stick around!


	5. Violent Closure

Final chapter! And Albel's fate will now be revealed! This is quite short and lacks humor, I must say. I had a rough weekend and didn't want to work a ton. I put an add in the classified section of my local newspaper saying I'd do work for a fair price. This old man calls me and says he'll pay me $500 to work on his lawn. Sounded easy enough. When I got there, there was grass up to my sternum (and I'm 6' 3" so you can imagine), billions of weeds, and more shrubs than Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico combined. Let me tell you people, nothing humbles you like 15 hours of back-breaking labor in the summer time.

So I decided I was going to do something wild with this, one hopefully throw you off from any obviousness in my prior chapters. At first, I thought I'd throw you for a loop by turning it into an AlbelxMarietta, but that wouldn't solve the love potion bit, so that got chucked. I'm not a fan of yaoi or shounen-ai, so the guys got cut. I couldn't make Albel a pedophile, so good-bye Peppita. And after Sophia cured Fayt when he was only 100 points into the yellow zone and was far away from the enemy, whereas I had 2 points left and was right in the field of the next attack for the eighteen-billionth time, I said to myself, "Screw you!" so she got cut. This made it Nel vs. Mirage vs. Maria.

Then I noticed that all three of them had roughly the same HP at the moment, so I had another plan. I was just about to fight Lenneth, so I made a game of it. I put all three of them in a group, and put them on manual. Then, when the battle started, I simply moved them to different corners and let Lenneth go for whoever she wanted. Whoever was the last to survive would get a point. I would do twenty of those, and the one with the most points became the winner. So I decided, whether it became an AlbelxNel, an AlbelxMirage, or an AlbelxMaria, I was going to do it. The verdict is in. I'll tell you the points at the end.

* * *

After sleeping an amazing total of four hours, our four refugees were roused from their sleep by a blaring noise. Sleepily staggering to the computer, Albel accepted a message coming from none other than Welch Vineyard. The screen flickered, and Welch came into view, her clothes ripped and singed, and her hair out of its pigtails, "Albel, we've got a problem!"

"What?" he shouted, instantly forgetting his sleepiness, the others grew concerned too, and surrounded him, listening.

"Our warehouse was broken into! They stole two thousand units of the love potion. It was them, Albel, the people in your group!"

"Shit!" Albel shouted, disconnecting and turning, "What are we gonna do?"

Marietta turned and opened the door, catching a glimpse of the entire gang hurling a vial of potion into the room and shouting their names. Luckily, she closed the door before any entered the room.

"Damn" Steeg groaned. He opened the closet and pulled out several garments handing them out, "Wear these, they cover your whole body"

They nodded and donned their gear, which consisted of a gray tunic, pants, boots and gloves, "What about our heads?" Lieber asked.

Steeg promptly ripped the pillowcases off of the pillows and threw one to each of them, putting his own over his head, "Just wear them like this! It looks stupid, but it covers it and is sheer enough to see through!"

They all did as they were bid, but Lieber turned on him, "Good job, Steeg, now we look like the KKK rejects!"

"Shut up!" he shouted, "On three, we're gonna run out. Lieber, Marietta, and I will make a wedge and push them away from you, Albel. After we distract them, run like hell! Try the transporter, if that doesn't work we'll have to hope we can outlast them until they run out of potion!"

"Why don't we just stay here?" he asked.

Suddenly the lights flickered and went out again, "That's why. They disconnected the battery!"

"Shit. Fine on three!" Albel said. They all nodded and took their place. "One!"

"Two!" Lieber shouted.

"Three!" Marietta barked.

"Run!" Steeg roared, and they charged through the door, barreling into them and knocking them over, ignoring the shouted names and exploding vials of red liquid, which instantly turned to goo upon hitting their clothes and the pillowcases. Albel darted off from the path and made a mad dash to the end of the hall, where he hoped the transporter was now on.

He barged in and stood in the center shouting, "Elicoor Two!" nothing happened, "F---!" And he bolted out, running into the next hallway over, dodging several exploding vials and meeting with the original survivor group.

"The transporter's off!" he shouted.

Steeg yelled, "Damn!" Suddenly, a vial impacted Albel's back at a breakneck speed.

"Ow! Now they're throwing them at me!" he turned around in time to side step another one, which impacted the joining of Steeg's legs. Albel and Lieber cringed, Steeg fell down, and Marietta clasped her hands over her veiled mouth. Even the male pursuers took a moment to mourn the damage done to his testicles.

" Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Now I'm pissed!" he shouted.

"Hey Albel!" someone's voice shouted. They turned to see Maria with rocket launcher loaded with vials of the potion. She fired, and the impact shoved Albel against the wall. He was glad that he new clothes were rather well padded; else he was sure that would have broken his ribs. He staggered up and ran off again, dodging as many people as he could. Steeg and the rest were hot on his trial, attempting to throw off any person who was in the way.

"For the love of all that exists in the world, someone help me!" Albel screamed, frantically slipping and sliding on the gel-covered floors.

They took cover in the endless labyrinth that was the cargo bay, rounding corners, leaping obstacles, and diving into a crevice that protected them from the rain of projectiles.

"I need a vacation for this vacation," Albel said.

Lieber answered, "Tell me about it!"

Steeg turned to Albel, "Listen, there's only one way out of this I can think of. Albel, run into a room, any room, as long it's empty, pull the case off the number pad; pull out the blue wire. After that, plug it back in and punch four random numbers into the pad. That'll reset the password to whatever you set it as. They can't turn power off to any room besides ours without turning off the oxygen creator, so it'd kill us all if they did. Wait in there, and we'll try to get a hold of their stock of potions and destroy them" Albel nodded, "Okay then, whenever you're ready"

The group suddenly ducked down as several hundred vials of potion were vented at them within seconds. They peeked up and saw Maria loading what appeared to be a gattling gun with linked vials of potion. "Oh my God! Where the hell do you get these things?" Lieber shouted.

Maria shrugged, "eBay". The group ducked as she opened fire again.

"Damn it! Albel, you gotta run and run fast!" Marietta said to him.

Albel took a moment to collect himself, and then dashed out from his shelter. He weaved through the boxes until he met a hiccup in his plan: Mirage grabbed the pillowcase and yanked it off. He managed to dodge the vial that was tossed at him, and remained untouched by the potion as he exited the cargo bay. He opened the first door he saw and darted in, pulling the case off, pulling the blue wire, plugging it back in, putting the case back on, and punching in the numbers 6-1-0-4 in less than three seconds. All was well.

"Made it!" he shouted.

"Not quite" someone haughtily proclaimed from behind him. He turned in time to catch a breaking vial and a splash of red spattering on his face. He vaguely made out a distorted name, and then he lost all train of thought.

Several hours later, he awoke to a stirring feeling. His clothes had been removed and were spread in the room with other articles of clothing. Someone's arm was lying across his waist, and a warm body was lying next to him. Do I want to know? Or should I just run? he thought. He took the plunge and glanced next to him.

What he first saw was a tuft of red hair, and he immediately knew who it was, Nel. He sat straight up, his face pale and his stomach churning. _Oh crap_, he thought. Intentional or not, he had just done _that_ with her without her sober consent; this was going to end with his manhood ripped off, he just knew it. He regretted his sudden movements thought, for her eyes flitted open and she stared at him.

"What the hell happened?" she asked.

"You were under the influence of a love potion…" he said.

"That explains the weird feeling of love I got but… how did it turn into this?" she shouted.

"I don't know. You threw a vial of it at me and put me under its effect. The inventor-wench said that all it would take to snap us out of it was a kiss. But apparently she was wrong" he said. Falling back onto the bed and staring up at the ceiling. _Member will be gone in five…four…three…two…_

Suddenly, he found Nel's head on his chest, "Eh," she said, "Could've been worse for both of us I guess"

"I suppose so" he said back. That was a definite truth. At least Nel was bearable, if he had ended up with Sophia, or Fayt, or…Adray… Albel paled.

Nel snuggled closer to his body, "I love you, Albel" she said.

He rolled over and pulled her closer, "I love you too, Nel" he told her.

"One thing though" she said, "if our kids ask, we aren't going to tell them that this happened"

"Why not?" he questioned.

"It's not exactly a story you tell your kids, 'we we're drugged with a bizarre love potion and forced to make love to each other, then somehow fell in love after we came to the realization'. We need something else."

Albel thought for a minute, "How's this? You were being sent to Airyglyph for a mission. I was told to escort you. We got caught in a blizzard and had to take shelter in a cave. Our fire died out, and you were too stubborn to take my cloak, so I put it on you. You then noticed I was cold, so you put the cloak over us both, and we used each other's body heat to warm up. Been in love ever since."

Nel thought it over, "It's touching, yet amazingly cliché, it's perfect!"

"I know, I'm good" he said, "But I should warn you, I got drunk and promised that stalker-kid he could be my best man at my wedding"

"I see…" Nel said worriedly, "I guess I'll have to live with that"

And for now, all was good in the world, and our story was at an end. Or was it…

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Yeah it was. You thought there'd be a cliffhanger didn't you? Ha! You should've seen the look on your face. It was all "OMG! Is there something else?" hahaha! Okay that's it; you lose.

Fin.

* * *

Ladies and gentlemen, Nel was our winner! I suppose Lenneth was nice enough to allow me to not have to change my initial plan, that or she agreed with me that Nel needed to loosen up and get laid.

Scores were: Maria- 1 (Lenneth went after her first like every time lol), Mirage- 5, and Nel-14 (Lenneth must've liked her). Don't be mad if your pairing didn't win, cause it was all luck of the draw. And to Alphia lovers, you were barking up the wrong tree anyway, I dislike Sophia too much to put her with anyone!

Hope you enjoyed it even if you don't like the pairing. I hope you all read my future fics and enjoy them as well.


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